Demian Drabbles (Death Note edition)
by silvaaeterna
Summary: A series of character drabbles based on quotes from Hermann Hesse's Demian.
1. L

**Summary:** A series of character drabbles based on quotes from Hermann Hesse's _Demian_.

 **A/N:** This was for a writing exercise, using this technique:

 _"Pick a book of any sort - novel, textbook, whatever - and take the first sentence off of pages 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, etc., as far into the book as you'd like. Using these sentences as a prompt, write a short drabble. You do not have to use the entire first sentence if you don't want to; a phrase or just a word is fine also if the sentence as a whole is not particularly inspiring. All that matters is that it is indeed the first sentence you are using - no picking and choosing, unless you come across something you really can't use, and in that case you just skip the page entirely."_

As mentioned, I used _Demian_ for the quotes. I did some for Death Note and some for Utena, but separated them for FFnet (hence all the missing page numbers).

* * *

 **Intro quote, just because I liked it:**

 **"I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?"**

* * *

I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self, but why was that so very difficult? Perhaps it was because even those promptings, even my own ideas of what was right and what was wrong, of what was cowardly and cruel and what was just, came ultimately from some outside source. For all the knowledge that had been drilled into my tender child's brain, how could I be certain which thoughts of my adult one were my own and which were really Watari's, my father's, my mother's?

Mother, you'd be called _okaa_ here, or _haha_... There are so many words I've amassed to describe your relation to me, but I can't remember what I called you in the days when only your language was my own, when I hardly was aware that other languages existed. And Father, whatever you were called, did you ever scold me? Did you give me a lashing with a sapling's branch when I angered you, or did you sagely smile at my precociousness and sit me in a corner instead? People debate which kind of discipline is best for a child, and I'd like to say you were a good parent to me then, but I simply can't remember your methods any more.

Your deaths were splayed out on every news broadcast; still I know the plot I untangled to arrest your killers, how gruesomely satisfied I was to see them caught, but that's all I really remember. A child my age should have been in mourning, but already I think I'd forgotten your faces.


	2. Matt and Mello

**P. 20: "Yet into the midst of this haven - always expected, yet horribly surprising each time - from somewhere Kromer's whistle would erupt, destroying the game, crushing my illusions."**

* * *

There were times I honestly thought we could be happy, Mello and me.

There were times he'd come home looking melancholy instead of just pissed off and frustrated, when he'd see me playing on my Gameboy and just smile. Instead of yelling at me for being a lazy-ass and telling me to check the monitors or fetch him a chocolate bar and a handful of pain pills, he'd just smile that soft, faraway smile of his and sit down on the floor beside me to watch me play. If that nostalgic smile wasn't so tainted with sadness, if that scarred flesh didn't still smell charred and distinctly un-Mello-like up close, it would've been just like old times.

Well, maybe not exactly like old times. Now he avoided his familiar bitching about Near during his better moods, because that would have brought him out of his blissful state of pretend and back to Kira. I could tell he was weary of this crusade, his vendetta, of everything. Even when he tried to look happy, when he laughed with me in my victories, when he cheered me on in my boss battles like they were the most important events of his day, there was a bone-deep tiredness underneath his grin. He'd mock my mistakes with none of the usual scorn; he'd strategize and brainstorm with me when I got stuck, instead of calling me an idiot. He was too tired for insults, but he'd be encouraging me to keep playing long into the sleepless night. Almost like old times, yeah, if you squinted real hard.

But into the midst of this little haven - always expected, yet horribly surprising each time - from somewhere Kira's whistle would sound, destroying the game, crushing our shared illusions, and I'd have to shut off that bright little screen and those happy chip-tunes before the promise of extra lives made us forget that we were mortal and living on stolen time.


	3. Near and Sayu

**P. 40: "If I wanted to, I could recall many delicate moments from my childhood: the sense of being protected that my parents gave me, my affectionate nature, simply living in a playful, satisfied existence in gentle surroundings."**

* * *

"If I wanted to, I could recall several pleasant moments from my childhood," Near deadpanned, "but since those memories represent only a very short period in my life, I see no point in revisiting them now."

Sayu slouched, sighing from her cross-legged spot on the floor, and picked up a lone black die from the half-finished tower before her. "It just seems so sad to think that someone my own age could already be so cynical and jaded..."

"To be fair, Miss Yagami, I'm nearly two years younger than you," the cold albino corrected her, "and there is a large difference between cynicism and logic." The girl glared at him and threw the die with a hollow _clack_ to the floor. Near picked it up calmly and returned it to the same spot on the tower that she'd taken it from.

"So letting that... that _Mello_ person get hold of that notebook thing was logical?" she yelled. "And letting my father play right into his plans, and then letting him get himself killed out of guilt for it later, was _that_ logical?!"

The boy's starch-white fingers paused in their work, hovering over the newly begun seventh story of the dice construct.

"No, that was far from a logical move," Near decided, turning a queerly rounded smile up at her. "You might call it an act of love."


	4. Light and Ryuk

**P. 50: "Some of it - the Cain business, for instance - was, of course, too much for me to stomach."**

* * *

I accustomed myself to his presence quickly enough. After all, it was only right that one who ruled the world by controlling death should be allied with a being who presided over the laws of death, that a living god should have a veritable death god at his beck and call - or at least at his side, as Ryuk was hardly interested in helping. To have the grotesque creature here, if only as one more tangible symbol of my power, was more than worth the few bushels of apples he cost me.

But some of it - the dancing business, for instance - was just too much for me to stomach.

Watching him twist his lanky black body into mid-air pretzels when he was desperate for his fruits was one thing, but his discovery of the world of dance could only be described as nauseating. (And I'd thought having a younger sister obsessed with pop music was bad enough.)

Ryuk tried out Sayu's DDR game one night when the rest of my family was absent; seeing him twist and stretch his feet to match the screen's directions was horrific. When he couldn't keep up he made a sort of Twister game of it, joining in with his hands to hit the pads. He bounced and bobbed on all fours, always with that hideous clown's grin on his stitched blue face, and I could only watch in amazed horror, wondering if he'd start foaming at the mouth to complete the rabid dog image he exuded. Instead, he just let his long black wings unfurl and flap joyously above him.

Let it be said that, if my grades should fall, it will not be due to the stress and time-consumption associated with using the Death Note, but instead to the sickening sight of a gruesome beast dancing gaily atop my bed while I'm trying to study.


	5. L and Light

**P. 60: "Beck listened with evident pleasure - finally here was someone to whom I was able to give something!"**

* * *

It was nothing out of the ordinary for me, to watch the confusion spread over the faces of the task force as I explained my current theories and the rather abridged version of how I had arrived at them. A strange feeling rippled through me, however, when I first spoke with _him -_ when I first realized that I could converse with him on my own level, without needing to slow down or pause to explain myself in simpler terms.

It thrilled me to the core; it was more delectable than the sweetest strawberry cream cake, to be with someone who could understand me so easily, who could spark my interest with his words and actually keep it. Light listened with evident pleasure - finally here was someone to whom I was able to give my true thoughts!

But to know from the depths of this same heart that he was the conductor of a massive orchestra of death... that pained me more than any amount of sweets could make up for.


End file.
